Eyes and Ice-Cream
by reminiscent-afterthought
Summary: At some point Ash wasn't going to be there as a convenient excuse to see each other and get to know each other better.


**A/N:** A random bit of Ikarishipping written for Empress Empoleon through the GGE 2014. Enjoy Empress!

* * *

**Eyes and Ice-Creams**

She'd been watching him for a while. Not since the start of his journey, because he'd gone straight to Kanto and branched out from there. But she'd been there when he'd first battled who he'd later consider to be his greatest rival: Ash Ketchum. And she'd been there for many other milestones as well.

Like his first Gym battle in the Sinnoh Region. And it had been a milestone for her as well: the first Gym Battle she'd ever seen. It hadn't seemed of any consequence then – not for a long time afterwards in fact, when they sat together and thought about how much they'd seen, and noticed, about each other.

And it was quite a lot, considering she was a Coordinator and he was a trainer aiming to be a Pokemon Master and those two paths, as far as he'd thought back then, had almost nothing in common. But, of course, there was Ash Ketchum who could mix any two things together and get something cohesive out of it – like how he'd entered the Wallace Cup and, Paul had grudgingly admitted to his travelling companion afterwards, had done a decent job in. And it had been contest experience that had let him beat Fantina in one shot. The one gym he'd lost at his first go around. One of two black marks in his Sinnoh record.

The other was, of course, losing to Ash in the quarter finals. But it was a lost that had changed as much for him as Reggie's loss to Brandon had, all those years ago when he'd picked up Turtwig from Professor Rowan and taken a ship to Kanto to watch his brother become Master of the Battle Frontier – or so he'd expected. But Brandon had lost instead, lost and been unable to face the challenge Brandon had set forth. And after Paul had started his own journey, Reggie called out of the blue to tell him he'd given up and decided to become a breeder instead.

Paul had decided to become strong that day, strong enough to conquer any obstacle, any opponent. He'd cut his losses where they happened and moved on: the Indigo League, the Johto League, the Hoenn League…but he hadn't met anyone like Ash Ketchum in those regions, who could take everything he'd been clinging to and turn it upside down – and come out on top when it truly mattered.

Reggie thought he should win that fight. Paul had thought that too. They'd both underestimated Ash.

And she'd watched all of that. She'd seen his conversation with Reggie, if by accident. She'd caught the slips of respect he allowed when Ash wasn't there to see. She'd caught the slight nervousness he had to cling to – and before that, a list of other signs at other times: other battles, other encounters, Chimchar, the Hearthome Tag Contest. He watched her opinion slowly changed just as she watched him slowly open up.

It hadn't been of much consequence then. She travelled around with Ash and Ash was his rival, so of course they'd see a bit of each other. But later, when everyone had gone their separate ways and he was hanging around Snowpoint training to battle Brandon again and she was with her friend Zoey enjoying some of Snowpoint's favourite ice-cream, it was a different story. They couldn't hide behind the excuse of Ash because Ash wasn't there anymore. In Unova, Dawn mentioned at some point in the conversation, before Zoey tactfully took her leave.

He'd wondered what they'd have to talk about. Maybe she'd wondered that as well, but it turned out they'd picked up a lot more about each other than they'd thought they'd had. Because they'd been hiding behind Ash: her friend, his rival, the reason they saw each other and interacted at all – but that wasn't true anymore, and maybe that was a good thing because they could see something more there.

She finished her ice-cream and he decided he wanted one, so he brought another one for her as well. She looked amused. He let it go; it was just another thing they could note down and remember about each other. She asked what his plans would be after Brandon. He asked what her future plans were as well. She'd been planning on going to Johto, she said, or Kanto, but she wasn't sure. He suggested Kanto, because win or lose to Brandon, he wanted to challenge the rest of the Battle Frontier.

It took him a bit to realise he'd more or less volunteered to travel with her, going to contests with her and cheering her on, and she'd likewise agreed to cheer for him in his battles at the battle facilities. He'd be losing a lot of time – but he'd be getting something valuable out of it in return, so he couldn't find himself minding his tongue all too much. He could do it, he thought, travel around with her, get to know her better and maybe even be comfortable in calling her a friend.

But then again, he knew her pretty well already. Like what sort of ice-cream she liked, because he'd picked out one for her before he'd thought to ask and she'd loved it anyway. And it was a different one to the one she'd enjoyed before.

He was glad no-one else was there to see that little encounter. He'd mellowed somewhat under her eyes, but not _that_ much.


End file.
